From left: Christina Applegate, Laura Dern, Zooey Deschanel, Jane Lynch, Julie Bowen, Martha Plimpton and Julia Louis-Dreyfus sat down with THR on May 7 at the Hollywood Tower in Los Angeles for a revealing conversation about their careers, their fans and the paparazzi.
From left: Christina Applegate, Julia Louis-Dreyfus, Julie Bowen, Jane Lynch, Zooey Deschanel, Martha Plimpton and Laura Dern goof off at the Hollywood Tower in Los Angeles.
"I presumed the world was excited to see strong, hilarious women on television," Dern says of her HBO show, Enlightened. "Tony Soprano and Larry David can be flawed, and we still love them. But when I started doing press, [the questions were] really eye-opening: 'Wow, the character of Amy is really angry.' I had never had those conversations about an independent movie I'd been in."
"My parents [actors Bruce Dern and Diane Ladd] were hugely influential — and hilarious to be raised by," Dern says. "They came from a generation of actors who were all about characters full of eccentricities and also protagonists in movies and in television. They deeply influence my longing to play those kinds of characters."
"I remember when my first son was born. I thought, 'I don't want anyone to take his picture,'" the Modern Family star says of paparazzi. "If the world knew what he looked like, some fruity nutburger was going to come steal him. I have never done this, but someone told me you can Google my son and find tons of pictures, and I'm not in them. But I can't make myself crazy over it."
"As kids growing up, we'd go to the supermarket, and we were not allowed to touch [the tabloids]," Bowen says. "But my mom now buys them! It's become totally acceptable to know who looks good without makeup."
"I grew up with Ed O'Neill and Katey Sagal as parents," says the former Married … With Children star, "so anything that I've done well or poorly you can blame pretty much on them. I considered myself really dramatic, one of those angst-ridden 15-year-olds. But being with those two, I learned how to completely let go and that it's OK to look foolish, and to come at it with truth. That all really came from Eddie and Katey."
"I've showed up to work at least twice on Up All Night with my pants on backward because I was so tired," Applegate says of her most embarrassing moment as an actor. "I was like, 'Why do they feel so weird?' And I look down, and there are the butt pockets"
"I loved The Carol Burnett Show and Saturday Night Live," the Glee star says of her early comedy influences. "They were both on at the same time for two years, and I was in heaven. I also wanted to live in The Brady Bunch household. Alice was hilarious."
"Comedy was definitely a diversionary tactic, a very conscious one for me in high school," Lynch says. "Keep people from looking too closely. There's stuff going on inside of you that's just so dark and ugly, you don't want people to see it. I hung out with the powerful people — the cheerleaders, the jocks. I was the funny person to have around, and it made me feel safe, like I was under the radar from being mocked."
"When I started to do press for Veep, I didn't consider [certain] questions, and that was stupid of me," Louis-Dreyfus says. "People started talking about, 'Oh a female vice president!' And I'm just trying to make a funny-as-s–t show. But I'm being asked questions as if I were running for office."
"It is just like war," the actress quips of her stint on SNL in the 1980s. "I did that show when I was 21. I hadn't even finished college and was unbelievably naive about the business. I came from doing ensemble shows and theater on campus in Chicago — 'We work as a team and support each other!' — and I brought that to SNL, and it had no place there. I couldn't have been greener."
"My parents say I tried to make them laugh when I was a baby, which I don't really trust," the New Girl star says. "I was always awkward and a little chubby. The only way I could get through the day was to make somebody laugh, make fun of myself first so others couldn't."
"Girls come up to me who are dressed exactly like I am — same hair and everything," Deschanel says of her fans. "I'm super-flattered: 'Oh my, I'm looking into a mirror.' But they're 16."
"I had a guy come up to me on the street," the Raising Hope star says. "I was hailing a cab and he called out to me, and sometimes I don't respond right away because in New York, you can get away with [ignoring people]. But he said: 'I feel very strongly you're a part of me. I feel your presence in me as well as your father and your grandfather because they're both actors.'"
"When I was a kid, Gilda Radner was everything. Madeline Kahn, too," Plimpton says of her comedy idols. "All the women in all of those Mel Brooks movies were huge."